The auto shows hit California — is it time to buy a new car?

It’s that time again, that shank of the year when the two big California auto shows display their wares – hundreds of new cars and trucks to beguile you and let you decide if you want to make that horrendous decision to purchase a new car, the most expensive thing you’ll buy after a house, assuming you’re not dickering for the Hope Diamond.

The Los Angeles show runs from today (Nov. 22, 2013) through Dec. 1, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The San Francisco show bows at Moscone Center Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28) and runs through Dec. 2. (Full disclosure: the San Francisco show is sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle/sfgate.com, among others. This auto blog appears on sfgate.com.)

It’s all very well to go have a look at the shiny wares of nearly every auto maker who sells vehicles in the U.S. But before you go ga-ga over the new Corvette or that slick Maserati or that humongous Suburban over there, it helps to have a realistic look at the sometimes nail-biting activity of buying a car circa 2013.

“The best thing to do is be honest with what you need,” says Mike Quincy, automotive specialist at Consumer Reports’ auto test facility in Colchester, Ct. “If you’re not buying for carpools, you don’t need a three-row SUV. If you’re only towing once a year, you don’t need a big truck. You’re paying for all this utility you’re not using.” And “be sensitive to certain issues,” Quincy adds. “At this stage in my life (he’s 50), I’ve been driving a long time, and I like cars with great visibility. Instead of sitting deep inside a tiny coupe with high sills and thick pillars, I’d rather sit up high and see out really well.”

Even though buying a car is frequently fraught with emotion, Quincy cautions, “don’t fall in love, which means don’t walk into a dealership and fawn over the car right in front of a sales person – I love it! I have to have it! Keep what you want close to the vest. It gives you leverage when you want to walk away from the deal.”

Actually, the deal is something that will come near the end of the process. Unlike, say, 50 years ago, the dealership is about the last stop on the trail of buying a new car, a purchase the average American makes “every five to seven years,” according to Philip Reed, a senior editor at the auto information Web site, edmunds.com. First, you have to do the research.

“Narrow down the search,” Reed says. “Then make a list of about five cars. Do some reading.” The reading, of course, can take hours, if not days or, in some cases, weeks. The reading is done mostly by traveling through the World Wide Web, from car site to car site. It can get confusing and even tedious, believe me, but you will find a wealth of information about cars – colors, drive trains, options, pricing – in succinct form; and, in most cases, you’ll be able to realistically evaluate what it is you want to buy and why you want it. In the old days, if you wanted, say, a red Chevy Impala with the 348-CID engine, with three two-barrel carbs, and a three-speed stick shift, you’d have to haunt dealer after dealer until you found the car of your dreams. These days, it’s easier.

“One of our executives wanted to buy a new (2014) obsidian blue Honda Accord Hybrid,” Reed says. “There were only four in the United States. We searched Auto Trader and found one in Virginia. We bought it and had it shipped to California for $1,500. You couldn’t do that years ago.”

Both Quincy and Reed emphasize the importance of taking a test drive. For example, once you’ve narrowed your list down to, say, three cars from three different manufacturers, call up each dealer and make appointments for test drives; if the drives are all on the same day, it gives you a basis for close comparison. “Test driving a car is like trying on clothes,” says Reed. “Some fit and some don’t.” Modern cars now have a myriad of seat and steering wheel adjustments. If you can’t get the driving position comfortable, even after half an hour of fiddling around with the seat adjustments, walk away.

Finally, we come to pricing.

“Once you’ve narrowed it down to two or three cars,” says Quincy, “find out the dealer cost of the car,” from a number of Web sites. “Don’t negotiate down from the sticker price,” Quincy says, but up from the dealer cost.

Many dealers will give you a price that may be “$500 over invoice or at invoice,” Reed says, but keep in mind that dealer cost (or invoice) is bolstered by hidden “holdbacks.” Under the complicated holdback system, the invoice price of a car is inflated by two to three percent, Reed says, and this two to three percent is later reimbursed by the auto maker to the dealer. So even if the dealer is willing to sell the car “at invoice,” the dealer will still make money on the car, even if it’s only a few hundred dollars. If that doesn’t sound very profitable for the dealer, Reed notes that dealers “make the lion’s share of their money on used cars, in their service departments and on the finance and insurance end of the deal, selling you additional products, such as extended warranties.”

Reed suggests negotiating directly with the Internet department at the dealership of the car you’ve chosen. This obviates the need to visit the dealer and haggle for hours with a sales person who may well invoke the time-honored tradition of telling you this is such a great deal you’ve made, that “I’ll have to check with my manager and I doubt he’ll go for it.” (Cf. some scenes in the movie, “Fargo.”)

In the end, Quincy says, “be honest with your budget. How much can you afford for a car? Not just the price of the car, but how much for gas and insurance. Factor that in.”

Once that’s all done, much of it may go by the wayside as you cruise out of the dealership in your new ride, having married your smart phone to the car’s electronics and your own music is blasting from the 10 speakers sprinkled around the car. At that point, it may not really matter how much you paid for it, or how you found it. You got it. It’s yours. Put the pedal to the metal.